Each time the lanterns flickered, the scenery of the street transformed like a kaleidoscope.
In the moments the light caught, the spectral outlines of merchant houses that must have once lined this path shimmered into view like a mirage, only to crumble into dust the instant darkness returned. From the cracks between the cobblestones, the frozen dregs of the Logic rose as a pale blue mist, crawling upward to coil coldly around Koyoi’s ankles.
The droplet inside his pouch trembled faintly in response to the chill. Koyoi cupped the vibration in his palm, his chest tightening as he imagined how abruptly the daily lives of those who once lived here had been snatched away. On the walls of the buildings flanking the street, countless marks of measurement carved by the Observers remained—piercing the surfaces like rusted iron nails, eloquent witnesses to the fact that this place had once been the subject of an exhaustive "survey."
The crack of the wooden clappers rang out again.
Yet, that sound no longer held the will of a night watchman; it was nothing more than a mechanical repetition, an automated echo triggered by the collapse of the Logic. Listening to that hollow tone, Koyoi understood instinctively that this street was no longer part of the human world, but had been fully integrated as a component of the Logic's computational apparatus.
The cobblestones, blanketed in a layer of descending data particles, emitted a faint phosphorescence with every step. The light momentarily etched the trio’s footprints into the ground, only for the power of the Logic to erase them without a trace seconds later. It was as if the location itself refused to record their existence. Koyoi looked back, suppressing a cold shiver as he watched their tracks vanish into nothingness.
Only forward progress was permitted here. The path behind them ceased to exist the very moment they stepped off it.
Overhead, the wreckage of a roof suddenly gave way. Unable to bear the weight of the data particles, it groaned and splintered with a dry crack. The sound merged with the reverberation of the clappers, flowing toward the depths of the street as a double dissonance. Koyoi flinched instinctively, but seeing Asahi’s back remain motionless just ahead, he steadied his breath and looked forward once more.
Kuon was focused on his Catalog. The light emitting from his artificial eye was sharper than usual. The blue glow scanning the pages deciphered not just the text, but the "invisible annotations" hidden between the lines. In those notes, the names of gods entombed within the frozen tiers were written over and over in the ciphers of the Logic. Kuon’s thin brows knit together, his jaw tightening with tension.
Asahi rested his right hand on the hilt of his sword, his gaze fixed on the furthest reaches of the street. At his feet, the joints of the cobblestones were beginning to widen unnaturally, and a wind as cold as ice blew upward like the breath of a final agony.
Kuon traced a warning inscribed on the page with his fingertip, repeating the motion unconsciously as he read.
"...Do not call out. The moment you name Yoinamihama, your 'True Name' will slip away with it."
The simple, intimate act of calling a name—the most natural of human gestures—was, in this place, the trigger that would cause one’s very existence to collapse from its foundation. Without looking up from the Catalog, Kuon intensified the glow of his artificial eye slightly, gauging Koyoi’s reaction. Behind his warning lay a memory carved like a permanent scar: the time he himself had nearly fallen into that very trap.
The excruciating pain of the day he lost his eye, only to have an observation device of the Logic implanted in its place, still throbbed deep within his socket. As if mocking that pain, the artificial eye pulsed with a stronger pale blue light, cruelly illuminating Kuon’s profile in the darkness.
"……I know. But, somehow... I can hear their voices. They’re calling out from beneath the ice, so desperately."
Koyoi spoke softly, his voice tinged with a sorrow deeper than fear. His ears had caught the faint but unmistakable cries of lament rising from the far depths of the frozen tiers. It was the resonance of the frozen gods picked up by the droplet in his pouch, reaching out to touch the softest part of his soul, pleading for salvation. Koyoi’s eyes wavered in time with the flickering lanterns; within them swirled a vortex of faint hope that he might save them, and the bottomless terror of what would happen if he failed.
Koyoi bit his lip hard, swallowing the names he must not speak, and instead drew the pouch close to his chest. The droplet pulsed in rhythm with its master's heartbeat, its warmth providing a small but certain comfort to his trembling heart.
Asahi listened to their exchange in silence—a heavy but kind silence chosen only by those who know the futility of words. He loosened his grip on his sword hilt slightly and deepened his breathing. The cold wind of the Logic blowing from the end of the street lashed against his cheeks without mercy, but Asahi swallowed even that pain, using it as fuel to press onward. Beneath his feet, the cobblestones creaked, the sound echoing long into the depths of the path.
"……We move. We’re going to reclaim the 'Answer' of the Logic from the heart of Yoinamihama."
Asahi spoke with his arms crossed. His words were short and blunt, lacking any ornament, yet they contained not a single trace of hesitation.
The shadows of the three stretched long toward the end of the street. The lanterns gave one final, brilliant flicker, and the dying echo of the clappers was swallowed by the frozen night sky.